Year: 2004

As you’ve probably already heard, Microsoft acquired GIANT Company Software, Inc. so that it can “provide Microsoft® Windows® customers with new tools to help protect them from the threat of spyware and other deceptive software” (from the press release). A beta version, based on the AntiSpyware product, is expected to be available by the end…

About two months ago, I ran across a blog post by Jon Udell of InfoWorld about his experience with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8. Like him, I toy with speech recognition technology every few years to see how it has progressed. After reading his post and watching his video, I decided to order a copy of the…

According to Rob Caron, you can now download the Visual Studio 2005 Community Technology Preview (CTP) for December 2004 at the MSDN Subscriptions site. The download is an ISO image for the English version of the DVD and weighs in at a whopping 3.16GB. Rob has also posted about an updated version of the Team…

I thought about titling this post, Man Found Dead with Cardamom Bread Recipe Stuffed in His Mouth. However, after considering the situation realistically for a moment, I realized that my grandparents probably wouldn’t knock me off for sharing two of our secret Swedish holiday recipes. But, if I turn up missing, you know who to…

It seems that the legality of my original article was in question, so I’ve decided to play it safe and replace it with this text. Although I thought the issues of fair use and the court cases surrounding 321 Studios DVD copying software had been resolved, one look at their web site indicates that this…

I became a Microsoft employee in May of 2000, and I’ve been a consultant in our Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) organization for the past 4½ years. Although I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in the field, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to work at our main campus in Redmond, Washington. Well, on Wednesday,…

To-date, I’ve been very happy with the improved search capabilities that Lookout provides for Outlook users. I’ve also played a bit with Google Desktop Search, and I’ve found a number of documents on my computer that I thought I had lost. With the explosion of data (e-mail, digital photos, shared documents, etc.) that has occurred…

I needed some new wallpaper for the upcoming holidays, so I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots around the house. As many of you know, my new monitor has a 16:10 aspect ratio (1920 x 1200), so you’ll find those in addition to the 1280 x 1024 images I’ve typically supplied. These images…

As Microsoft employees, we’re allowed to carry forward the same amount of vacation time that you would normally accrue in a single year. Since I get three weeks of vacation each year, I can carry forward no more than three weeks into the next year. So, in 2004, between actual holidays, floating holidays, and unused…

Update on 3/26/3009: I recently received an official communication from our hardware group that is germane to this old blog post: Thanks for your interest in Microsoft Hardware products. The Fingerprint Reader is no longer being manufactured by Microsoft but we recognize it may still be available from retailers and resellers. The product runs on 32-bit versions…